TOWN OF ORCHARD PARK
Board delays decision on Yates barn
Will it cost thousands of dollars to save the state’s largest barn of its type, or millions?
That was the pivotal issue at a public hearing held by the Orchard Park Town Board on Wednesday on whether to grant historic status for Edgewood Farms at 7295 Jewett- Holmwood Road.
Advocates of saving the mammoth 1920s Yates barn say that keeping the structure standing and in use would cost $200,000 to $300,000.
But the property owner says his experts have estimated costs up to nearly $5 million, far more than the site can recover as a business.
“We can conceive of no development plan or future use that would justify the money it would take to rehabilitate these properties,” said lawyer Brian Attea.
Attea represents a company headed by developer James Jerge that seeks to raze the barn and build houses on the property.
A permit to do that has been on hold this year while the town considers whether to save the barn, and its attached ceramic silos, by granting historic status. The Town Board held off on acting on the designation at Wednesday’s meeting.
The hearing was a do-over of a previous one held in July, of which the developer who owns the property said he was not notified.
Attea questioned the barn’s claim to a place in history. It isn’t mentioned or pictured in a book on the original owner, Harry Yates, he said, while research at the Orchard Park Library and on the Internet failed to turn up support for historic designation.
Farmer-businessman Harry Yates once owned 3,500 acres in Orchard Park.
Sue Kulp, a member of the Historic Preservation Board, disputed Attea’s cost estimates. While full restoration might be costly, simply preserving the structure would cost a fraction of his estimate, she said.
“We don’t want to take it back to its original condition — we want to stabilize it, to preserve it.”
Preservation board members have toured the structure with building experts to arrive at the figure of $200,000 to $300,000.
The barn could be used as part of a horse farm, and grants for preservation could be found if the historic status is granted, preservation advocates said.
“To see this wonderful structure torn down would be an absolute tragedy,” resident Michelle Taberski said.
